Necessities From Home

Yup, D & I are going back to HK later this afternoon and we have been stocking up on some important necessities, namely D’s Kopi-O, Bak Kut Teh mix, 8 story books and a few Math assessment books.
This particular Kopi-O can’t be found in HK and D doesn’t drink any other Kopi-O brands except for this one. FYI, each big packet contains thirty satchets of instant coffee and sugar and costs S$3.85/HK$20.

Most instant coffee sold in HK are the 3-in-1 types (i.e. Coffee, sugar & creamer) and D’s stomach doesn’t react very well with 3-in-1 coffee mixtures. He reckons it’s the creamer.
As for me, I drink Davidoff coffee, which I can find in CitySuper & Jusco. It costs more in HK (HK$65/S$13-HK$75/S$15) than S’pore (S$9/HK$45), but my tastebuds have grown accustomed to it. I tried to be thrifty and experimented with other brands, but somehow, I just didn’t like them. Call me “high-class” or just plain spoilt, but it’s pointless drinking sucky coffee, especially since it’s the one thing that wakes me up each morning before going to school. Who knows what I will do to my pupils if I don’t have a good cuppa each morning…
So each time we return to S’pore, we will stock up on D’s coffee and this time we have 10 big packets, enough to last till next Feb.
I have also thrown in 2 boxes of Prima’s Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee mix just to try in HK. Each box costs about S$4.95/HK$25 and I can’t find it in HK (only Prima Laksa, Chilli Crab and Bak Kut Teh have been spotted in HK’s Citysuper and they are at least HK$35-HK$45/S$7-S$9 per box).

D will be my guinea pig when I experiment with this Prima mix. If it doesn’t work, I can still fall back on our favourite dish, Bak Kut Teh, which is, to me, absolutely easy to make ‘cos I just need to “throw” all the ingredients into a big pot and let it simmer for at least an hour and a half. D loves this ‘cos he is a major meat-eater and I love it ‘cos it’s a meal in itself, so less washing up to do. Moreover each packet costs S$1.50/HK$8 and I can’t find this particular brand in HK. Its taste is authentic enough, and we both think of S’pore when we have this dish, especially during the cold winter nights.
Obviously we couldn’t fit all these necessities into our bags, and we went to the post office to pack everything into the 5kg box, including the sturdy NTUC FairPrice plastic bags… the ParknShop ones are so flimsy.
The charges came up to about S$105, expensive siah, but a necessary evil. I can’t imagine if we actually live further than HK, if D actually relocates to US or UK, these necessities will cost even more. So for now, this stash will tide us over the next few months before we return to S’pore for more.